


A Long Way To The Hop

by tielan



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 05:24:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13629522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: The first two days of the trip were quiet.





	A Long Way To The Hop

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rosabelle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosabelle/gifts).



“All right, let’s make one thing clear,” said the passenger, standing in the middle of the room with his feet planted. “Don’t yap at me. I don’t want to listen to your complete ‘Wonders of Dornan’ spiele, I’m not here to hear about your political opinions, and if I choose to spend the entire month in my cabin smoking _heba_ -leaf, then that’s my business.”

Riahi wasn’t entirely surprised by the surliness. It had, after all, been evident from the way he stalked up the ramp, waving away his entourage with an impatient flick of fingers. Still, she considered it more than a little rude to be so summarily dismissed, without so much as a hello, so she flattened her voice slightly, to tones more typical of an AI than a sentiship.

“Your ticket includes meals, either self-prepped, or AI-made. Did you wish to be notified of mealtimes or have meals served to you?”

“If I wanted hand-on-foot waiting, I’d have taken a spaceliner,” he said shortly. “I want peace. And that includes from you.”

It was probably just as well that her voice circuits through the ship could be disconnected from her biochemistry. It meant she could say, “Very well, Mr. Verthigrees. Please enjoy your stay aboard Sentiech RK-416,” and sound perfectly professional.

She pulled her attention from the visual circuits monitoring his room, although not before she saw a faint frown cross his face. But then there were calculations to make, station berths to book, and space traffic to monitor, and she didn’t have time to ponder over a passenger who saw her as a small-size spaceliner. Oh, it stung, of course – she was still human at her core, even if her neurality was connected up into the body of a ship – but she had other things to think about than a passenger who’d be travelling with her all of once and who seemed to think that hiring her meant she could be ordered around like a servant.

And the first two days were quiet.

* * *

To start with, Seth Verthigrees slept, got up and made himself meals. He took a shower, went back to sleep, woke, ate, went back to sleep.

On the third day, amidst the eat-and-sleep routine, he showered, accessed her datanet, and briefly pulled out a guitar out of its case before pausing, putting it back in, and closing up the case again.

Riahi was only vaguely aware of this. The monitoring equipment around his suite was set to ‘record and secure store’ and she had no interest in actively watching him.

So when she was pulled out of an impressively immersive experience-stream about the history of intersystem space trails by a ‘knock’ on her circuits, she was a little cross.

Once again, however, she answered him professionally.

“May I help you, Mr. Verthigrees?”

He paused, his hand still hovering over the ‘call’ button by which he’d requested her attention. “You could...not talk to me like you’re an AI.”

That was a surprise. But Riahi kept the same professional tones. “I was under the understanding that you wished for peace and quiet, Mr. Verthigrees.”

“I did,” he said. “I mean, I do. But it’s been so completely quiet around here ever since we left Khryshen, and...well, I guess I’m more used to people being around me all the time.”

“You have a complete entertainment package in your suite, with full communication options, should you wish to interact with other humanibeings.”

The uneasy expression on his face grew as she spoke, culminating in a wince. “Aren’t you a humanibeing, too? I mean you’re a sentiship, obviously, but you’re a person, too.”

“That is correct.”

This time, he did wince. Then he drew his brows together. “Look, if this is about the way that I came on board...”

He trailed off. Riahi waited for him to complete the sentence. She understood that he was waiting for her to step in and give him a cue, but she was choosing not to fill him in.

“If this is about the way I came on board, then I’m sorry. And even if it’s not about the way I came on board...I’m sorry for my behaviour the other day. That was...I shouldn’t have said what I did – or said it the way I did. It was rude and abrupt and I wouldn’t...” He hesitated. “I wouldn’t treat someone I’d employed that way, so I shouldn’t treat someone I’ve hired to do a temp job that way either. So, uh, my apologies?”

Riahi considered what he’d said and the tone he’d said it in. She measured his resting heart rate, and his pulse, noted the tension in his shoulders, back, and the way he held his head – neither quite downcast, nor lifted as arrogantly as it had the first day.

All the indicators suggested he was sincere.

She took his apology at face value. “Thank you, Mr. Verthigrees.”

“Please, call me Seth.”

 


End file.
